Berry Tramel: Big 12 needs both OSU, Utah to become the league's big dogs
- Sep 17, 2024 Updated 12 hrs ago
Berry Tramel
Sports ColumnistWe all love to talk parity and wide-open races and how Big 12 football is America’s league. The most fun conference in college football.
And maybe it is. But it’s in the Big 12’s interest to be something else.
It’s in the Big 12’s best interest to develop a big dog. Maybe even two.
An Alabama or Georgia in the Southeastern Conference. An Ohio State in the Big Ten. A Clemson in the Atlantic Coast. An Oklahoma in the previous iteration of the Big 12. A school that comes to define and in some ways dominate the league.
The only power conference that really hasn’t had a sustained dominator this century was the Pac-12, and the Pac-12 went the way of the wind.
Which brings us to Boone Pickens Stadium on Saturday, when OSU hosts Utah in a September Big 12 showdown of programs primed to be the new-look conference’s best.
With the Sooners and Longhorns off to the SEC, the Big 12 has a leadership void. A vacancy at the top of the pyramid.
No one knows who will emerge as the champion of the inaugural 16-team Big 12, and no one knows if said unknown champ can make a habit of holding aloft the trophy in Arlington’s Jerry World.
But if you round up the usual suspects, OSU and Utah would be at the front of the line.
Utah was picked to win the Big 12 this season, with Kansas State and OSU a close second and third. Arizona and Kansas received some attention, too, but early-season results would indicate that Iowa State and Central Florida deserve more consideration.
Oh, well. Who knows? Most anyone could win it.
“Seems like a league with a lot of parity,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham told me Tuesday.
And Whittingham, a Utah icon on the order of Mike Gundy’s status in Stillwater, said he believes the league would do well with a rotating band of champions and contenders, all courtesy of the 12-team College Football Playoff that debuts this season and triples the slots for playoff teams.
“I would say now with the new playoff structure, it’s good,” Whittingham said of parity. “I think in the past, it was a negative. I know we felt that in the Pac-12, at least, where there were only four spots, and if you didn’t have that premier team that was either unblemished or maybe one loss, you didn’t have much of a chance of getting in.
“But now with the new structure, and the P4 champions getting the invite, I think it’s good to have competition and have a competitive situation within your league.”
Yes, the Big 12 champion is virtually certain of getting a playoff berth every year, but that’s true whether there’s parity or not. What the Big 12 desires is multiple spots in the 12-team playoff, and the league’s chances would increase if there’s an established big dog or two, working itself in via reputation. That’s certainly going to be the case with other conferences.
“This is a vital time,” said Baylor coach Dave Aranda. “I know everyone else in our league thinks the same way, for Baylor, or whatever team you support, to take charge of the league, to take that step, because it’s wide open right now.
“I think the opportunity that’s in front of us is not going to be there for long, so I think there needs to be a team that takes command and kind of leads the charge, so to speak. We need Baylor to be that team.”
Well, good luck with that. But the programs most poised to take charge will share a field in Stillwater on Saturday.
In the last 12 years, OSU is tied for 10th in wins among the 68 power-conference schools, with 107. Utah is tied for 16th, with 96. They rank 1-2 among current Big 12 members.
Here are the schools ahead of OSU: Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Georgia, OU, Notre Dame, Oregon, Louisiana State and Michigan. OSU is tied with Wisconsin. That’s heady company for the Cowboys.
Go back 15 years, and OSU is tied for ninth, with Notre Dame, at 138 victories. The Cowboys’ consistency is quite remarkable. OSU has more wins in the last 15 years than does Michigan (133), Florida State (133), Penn State (130), Southern Cal (122), Florida (119), Texas A&M (118) or Texas (116).
It’s an American success story, and one that needs better telling. Becoming the top dog in a power conference would spread the word.
“In my opinion, as we move forward, there’s going to be a lot of parity,” Gundy said. “More parity in college football than there has been over the last few years. If revenue sharing takes effect, I would guess that most schools in this league will distribute money somewhat equally to football.
“The direction we’re going, that’s going to determine the type of players that you have in your organization, whether we like it or not. Recruiting is still recruiting, but it won’t be as much recruiting as it is now. It will be the ability to distribute money to the right players that you need based on the talent that you think you’ve seen at that particular time.”
Gundy’s always talking about money, and he’s probably right for doing so. The bottom line — not the offensive line or the defensive line — drives college football.
But parity could hurt the Big 12 long term. Frankly, the Big 12 looks like a conference with a batch of 10-2/9-3 teams at the top. The Big 12 needs a championship game that pits a 12-0/11-1 team vs. an 11-1/10-2 team.
The history of the playoff committee would suggest that it would be quite satisfied to issue no at-large berth to the Big 12. The league needs to make the committee uncomfortable with that position. The league needs an OSU or a Utah or Kansas State or multiple such squads to repeatedly be near the top of the league, with a glittering record, so that it gets at least consideration for a second playoff spot.
For the last 12-15 years, OSU took advantage of Texas’ slump and became the Big 12’s second-most successful program. The Cowboys actually established a national brand.
Utah in the last decade became a Pac-12 force, with back-to-back titles and Rose Bowl appearances in 2021 and 2022. Whittingham’s program, too, built up its brand.
The best thing for Big 12 football in 2024 would be for the OSU-Utah winner to keep winning, and the OSU-Utah loser to do the same.
